From Software The Dark Souls II Megathread™

[sullynathan]

So you can even cheese the dragon rider. I'm restarting the game.

 

[Caim]

So you can even cheese the dragon rider. I'm restarting the game.

You mean goading it into falling off of the platform and to its death?

 

[Gentle Player]

Ok I just found the entrance to the Ivory King challenge area and went in to take a look. This is a fucking joke right? An empty field that blinds you every 15 seconds? Were they out of brain cells?

I wouldn't mind it so much were it not for the terribly hard boss at the end with no additional bonfire. Lud and Zallen is the only fight I've never won without a summoned phantom (Vengarl in this case; I never summon other players because I might as well just not play the game then) to help.

 

[sullynathan]

So you can even cheese the dragon rider. I'm restarting the game.

You mean goading it into falling off of the platform and to its death?

Yes

 

[mediocrepoet]

Am I the only one who actually liked Shrine of Amana? Particularly with SotFS, which spices it up a bit.

I really liked the visuals of it. Beyond that, this one guy kept chain invading me there to try and get me killed by all the casters. I got tired of it and used the giant's seed and started sprinting through everything with him chasing me. Getting his souls felt great and suddenly he stopped invading.

 

[Murk]

dragon rider

Spoiler

you can pseudo cheese the fight with two of them in the throne room too, just stand near the platform where the archer is ant he halberdier will break it and drop the archer early -- allowing you to kill him in 2-3 hits if you have a 'striking' weapon like the craftsman's hammer or any great hammer

80Maxwell08 WELCOME TO HORSE RAPE ALLEY HAHAHAHAHAHAH (using the great club or similar weapon with the 'pancake 2h r2 smash' lets you flatten them in a single hit if you don't have any summons, or if you do have 1 you can throw on the stone ring for extra smashy power).

 

[80Maxwell08]

dragon rider

Spoiler

you can pseudo cheese the fight with two of them in the throne room too, just stand near the platform where the archer is ant he halberdier will break it and drop the archer early -- allowing you to kill him in 2-3 hits if you have a 'striking' weapon like the craftsman's hammer or any great hammer

80Maxwell08 WELCOME TO HORSE RAPE ALLEY HAHAHAHAHAHAH (using the great club or similar weapon with the 'pancake 2h r2 smash' lets you flatten them in a single hit if you don't have any summons, or if you do have 1 you can throw on the stone ring for extra smashy power).

I've heard that before and thanks for the advice but I didn't even bother going any farther after I saw the area. I probably will for completion's sake at some point but man what a disappointment after the other 2 challenge areas.

 

[Murk]

There's a bit of an easy way, which I'll spoil below just in case, but I'll tell you that the only items of any note there are the ring of the living, the mirrah hat (no mask, just hat), and the two equips you get from turning in the kitty souls.

Spoiler

The entire area is actually walled off, so if you run to the 'east' (to the right of the summoning spot) you'll hit a wall and can follow it until you reach the chasm. You'll then just hug the chasm and follow that to the opening bridge, on the way you'll get the ring, and that will lead you to the boss fight. You can summon vengarl, who is tanky, and just ditch him so that the horsies will attack him and you can just book it to the chasm in question. You also avoid the other enemies here. I still can't tell if the horsies are moving around, just in one spot, or what but yeah. I did this a few times and it works ok, still takes a while tho.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

shiiiit dat 0:52

 

[Mozg]

Finding out that you can actually intercept and knock back the ruin sentinel shield throw

same day

In dragon's dogma you can actually grab-hold an evil eye and use its eye attack to blind a cyclops

...

Fallout 4 will sell at least like 20 million copies lifetime btw

 

[Caconym]

You can hit back firebombs thrown at you as well, apparently.



at 28m42s

 

[Murk]

Same with thrown axes (like from gyrms).

Man, hitboxes aint no thang after doing SL1 (before agi boosting items were in.)

 

[Rolk's Drifter]

Awesome vid. Very clever, will definitely try it out sometime although I suck at emoting ::-/

I knew about the firebombs but not the shield/axes. Really love how there's always something to learn/discover. It's not quite the same but you can spell parry the lingering flame (?) from Desert Sorceresses. Kinda obvious but it's the only time I've found spell parrying to be somewhat useful. As a melee only type, those bitches scare the shit out me. Such sweet loot though lol. Wonder if you can spell parry the Squalid Queen's version. Or the Fume Knight's orby things.

80Maxwell08 I really liked that area but I'm big into coop so maybe that makes a difference. Still, it's a very small area and it's over quickly. If you want an easy way through, Santier's Spear absolutely rapes that area. With 40 vigour & 3rd Dragon ring you have enough stamina to stunlock the horses to death in one burst. I imagine it's true of other twinblades but I'm only now trying them out.

 

[Rolk's Drifter]

My god, I don't like this game not at all. There are a lot of changes to how the game plays compared to DS1 and it has reached a point at which it feels weird and some of the changes just feel like they were put just because. The world has yet to show the connectedness that it had in DS1. Also, starting classes are far more specialized than they were in DS1.

I don't like how they made the hit detection worse, I don't like how enemies can stun lock the hell out of you now, I don't like leveling with only one character, I don't like how the jumping is worse now, I don't like this half-health hollow shit. It seems parrying has gotten worse too.

Somehow, FROM was able to make movement feel much smoother with how easy it is to move around and the removal of the weightiness but at the same time you attack sluggishly. So far, it seems like almost all the hollow enemies I have fought attack as fast or even much faster than my character. Couple that with the fact that they can lock you into a combo that you can't move away from or block afterwards, it comes off as stupid.

Fuck, this retarded giant boss was just terrible and lazy. There is nothing to the boss and it suffers from the same problem that the oversized bosses in DS1 suffered from. All you do is stand under the Giants legs and just keep spamming attacks. His hits are easy to dodge with strafing. Lazy shitty boss.

I liked how lock-on has a longer range. I like the new implementation of dual wielding. I like the greatly improved UI, I like human effigy instead of using a bonfire to become human again. I like being able to fast travel from every bonfire at the beginning of the game. I like the new Backstab, it means circle strafing isn't king but at the same time, I don't like how locking-on to an enemy means that they have a very high chance of attacking you.

I might just restart this game to see but so far I'm not liking it.

I was kinda similar when I first played DS2. Now I love the shit out of it!

My advice is don't start again just yet but go through the first area several times using different weapons/armour etc. Once you get to know the layout/enemies, things get a lot less frustrating. If you use boss souls, you should have plenty of currency for equipment. One tip is maybe try a weapon with 2 handed thrusts like the spear, longsword, rapier or estoc. Stunning/staggering is pretty important in DS2. It can make life alot easier. Plus with thrusts you can use the enemies aggression against them as they basically just run into your pokes of doom.

Also, with regards to getting stunlocked you have two options. One is get some armour with poise. The other is stay mobile and use space/terrain to your advantage. It can be very instinctive to fight mooks 'on the spot' so to speak but that isn't always very wise. DS2 is pretty big on ganking and I think they expected people to use the environment more than people seem to.

PS: with regards to hitboxes... mimics... those fuckers can suck you up even if you're behind them! Yeah they're easy and all but that's still some serious bullshit. Especially since it's often a one shot kill. Fucking hate one shot grabs...

 

[sullynathan]

okay, lets just say that my continued impressions have been more positive. The game certainly has that "Dark souls" feel to it and it is more since I restarted it.

 

[Caim]

Alright then, give it a shot and see what you can find!

 

[sullynathan]

I have, I've been playing for 3 hours now on the new playthrough and altogether I've played this game for 8 hours. I just hope that my pirated save files are compatible with the ones from the legal game.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

I just hope that my pirated save files are compatible with the ones from the legal game.

I'm sure they're compatible, but I'd do a little googling first, because unlike DS1, DS2 has an anti-cheat system that flags you for the next ban wave if you fiddle with your save files to give yourself some items, etc. So if you load a save that steam might consider as "not yours", it might be considered as cheating by the system? It's worth checking out first.

 

[sullynathan]

I don't have the game legally yet, just some thought for the future when I get some sucker to get it for me.

 

[sullynathan]

Ok, so I'm liking the game a lot more now.
Somethings I have noticed that I don't like though is this use of long animation. Drinking estus flasks take longer than DS1, bringing up your shield takes longer than DS1, you can't bring up a shield right after you've been attacked, you'd have to evade or dodge first and given time. I really don't know why these changes were made.

I have beat the giant, the dragon rider and the pursuer. Pursuer took me a bunch of tries because I kept trying to hit him with the giant ballistas. Funny, I found that you can parry him. Speaking about parrying, it's different now. It takes way too much stamina and the animation recovery after you use it takes much longer than DS1 and you have to do it very early before the enemy attacks.

I finally bought some good armor. It's a different pace from DS1 in that there are more vendors early and they sell pretty good gear.
The stamina thing is different too. I like that it takes a lot more equipment to get the fat roll and your character moves pretty quickly, but I don't like how even rings have weight now.

It's a good thing that FROM greatly improved the UI, god the UI in DS1 was garbage.

These armored guys in the place with the giants went hostile after I beat the boss. They are weird to say the least, I guess they are blind.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

it takes much longer than DS1 and you have to do it very early before the enemy attacks.

All weapons/shields are different when used for parrying. There is a parrying dagger and some small bucklers that make parrying very easy and can be pressed late and still work. Others have less parrying frames, and need to be pressed much earlier. Experiment with different things.

 

[sullynathan]

man those parrying shields are gay as fuck, I'm not using them. Why did this game even start the knight class with a broken sword anyway?

 

[Rolk's Drifter]

Yeah, real men hide behind massive shields

Seriously though I agree, the buckler does look retarded on a guy. But there are many more and very cool shields to come. Also the early enemies are probably the hardest to parry. It gets easier later on. Weird but true. Bosses are often easy to parry due to their big slow attacks, unfortunately they recover so fast it doesn't do much good. Except in coop, it's awesome in coop. Medium shields are good for most things. 2 handing a weapon is fine too. Apart from spears and a few anomalies, the 2HL2 is a parry. Super-parries are incredibly satisfying if you can land them.

Recovery time is a thing in DS2. As in it's something that varies. Many things vary in DS2. It's one of the reasons I still enjoy it. Lots of things to choose from, lots of pros and cons to weigh up. The buckler has the worst recovery time but you have many more options as Bester said. You're very close to the parrying dagger which has the fastest recovery time iirc. Personally I like the long recovery time cos parry spam is worst spam :p

Did you pick up the Drangleic set after The Pursuer? That has a good shield. It's not a parrying shield but if you practise it's good enough.

 

[sullynathan]

Hmm, as I play this game and get used to it's controls and mechanics, I can't help but feel like the level design is just flat out worse than DS1 so far. I reached that forest area and just like DS1, the forest area here is just a long corridor with nothing to it except enemies with tracking arrows and tracking attacks.

So far, I have at least gotten a 100% blocking shield and some decent weapons. I like halberds here just like DS1 but this time they don't seem to have the problem of long recovery time like DS1 but I'm not going for a dexterity character so eh. I got the ring that limits the health loss from dying.

Also, do you need to be online to summon NPC's? I was sure that I should have been able to summon an NPC for the last giant fight and no sign showed up even after I used a human effigy. Also,

Now, this retarded dragon is giving me hellkite drake vibes with how they positioned him. bullshit.

 

[Caim]

Now, this retarded dragon is giving me hellkite drake vibes with how they positioned him. bullshit.

You mean the one at Heide's Tower? They added that one just for SotFS. There used to be one of those big knights there guarding the castle.

Plus, what's in there kinda clashes with the dragon...